RIGHTS: Problem of “Invisible” Crimes Against Women

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Dec 11 1999 (IPS) - A 16-day awareness campaign, designed to spotlight the various forms of sexual violence suffered by women throughout the world, draws to a close Saturday.

Such crimes as rape by police and other agents of the state have figured high on the issues raised since Nov. 25, the day identified by the United Nations as the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.”

Human rights activists and women’s groups have been vocal in condemning the “invisibility” of these crimes.

According to the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), “Women who suffered sexual and other physical abuse in custody at the hands of government agents were perhaps the most invisible and the most vulnerable, as their abusers held positions of authority and public trust.”

In its “World Report 1999,” HRW describes how such crimes frequently occur in countries as far apart as the United States and India.

Studies have shown that on one hand, governments repeatedly “turn a blind eye” to the problem while on the other hand that there is no mechanism for the abused women to “safely and confidentially report abuse and seek an investigation without fear of significant retaliation.”

The situation in Mexico reflects this reality.

A recent visit here by Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has been perceived by some commentators as an effort to address such “invisible” crimes.

Robinson presented a human rights manual to Mexican officials for use by police and other government authorities. Called the “Body of Crime: Women’s Human Rights in Social Justice” the manual stresses the need for those in authority to investigate crimes against women and to ensure the law is properly applied.

Feminists, howver, are not overtly optimistic about an imminent change of heart by the state.

The Mexican government always has been slow to respond to brazen acts of sexual violence by the police, says Ann Geltink, local programme officer of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). “Nothing is being done specifically.”

Compounding the problem, she adds, is the absence of accurate information on how extensive such rape occurs in Mexican cities and beyond. “It is known that girls living on the street are often sexually abused by the police.”

An incident that occurred in July last year illustrates this point. Three teenage girls who stopped a police horseback unit to ask for directions were taken by force into a stable and raped for four days by a group of policemen.

Geltnick’s observations are no different to what continues to trouble human rights monitors in other countries.

In India, for instance, women who most frequently suffer abuse are Dalits – the so-called “untouchable” caste of Hindus – who either must work in the sex trade or at menial tasks which make them primary targets during police raids.

In one Indian state, police were accused of “hostage-taking”, when women were arrested and tortured as a means of punishing their absconding male relatives and forcing them to surrender. And in Indonesia, police were accused of raping ethnic Chinese women during the riots in May 1998.

Early this year, a study commissioned by the World Organisation Against Torture concluded that a lack of “gender sensitivity” in the structure and content of international human rights law remains a fundamental reason for such pervasive violence against women.

Such abuse in custody often takes on particular forms based on gender – which merits special study – the report notes, while stressing that women need special protection against particular risks.

The rape of female detainees can be part of a deliberate government policy of repression or it can be simply a consequence of indifference and a failure to take preventive measures, according to Anne-Laurence Lacroix and Carin Benninger-Budel, the co-authors of the report.

Meanwhile, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, says that “custodial violence is perhaps the worst form of violence by the state.”

Coomaraswamy, a Sri Lankan lawyer, considers such sexual violence by state authorities as a betrayal of trust against those who are “completely in their power.”

“If human rights means anything, it must be a cry to halt this kind of behaviour,” she says.

In an interview with IPS, Coomaraswamy declared that more governments must acknowledge this “invisible” crime and introduce strong legislation to combat it.

“When the concept of custodial violence is in the law, the burden of proof changes, since the case is about rape in a state institution,” she notes.

In Africa, getting such laws into the books has been the focus of the current campaign against violence against women. Kenyan women’s rights groups, for example, say that the police and the judicial system have contributed to the problem because they are part of the “hostile social environment.”

More pressure is needed to expose the “culture of silence” that exists, masking its prevalence and allowing it to continue, the groups declared.